William Orbit, Hello Waveforms

Do people still chill out? Or does the notion of enjoying atmospheric, ambient music post-club now seem as quaint as a Fast Show catchphrase, or an album entitled Hello Waveforms? If the horizontal clubbing scene has faded then no one's told William Orbit as the signature style he's employed since Madonna's Ray of Light - lilting guitar, choral synths, progressive house motifs - remains unchanged. But then the producer has pioneered this kind of ethereal electronic music since the 1980s, culminating in 2000's adaptation of Barber's Adagio For Strings (an unlikely trance hit which was endlessly piped through the nations gyms).

Sea Green is evocative of All Saints' Pure Shores stripped of the Appletons; the Sugababes provide some tangible soul on Spiral and he reunites with Strange Cargo's Laurie Mayer on Who Owns the Octopus? which is rich in atmosphere, and, like most of Hello Waveforms, quaint but rather lovely.